Light Warriors
by Warrior Creations
Summary: Five teens are selected from five lantern corps to combat an impending darkness able to ravage the universe. (This is the first part in a four-part series I'm working on. Enjoy!)
1. Intro

**Intro**

The night sky glistened with stars, like pinholes in a black velvet cloth. But something was strange about tonight. Three lights flickered in the distance. Unlike the stars, these were moving, in an orbit towards the Earth. Any onlookers would barely notice them, let alone know what they were: meteors. They were small, perfectly round, all three glowed a different hue: one red, one indigo, one violet. Each had a different symbol etched into them. Suddenly, they broke orbit and struck three points of North America.

Three people's lives are about to be changed…forever.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**'Assemble'**

Josh Richards zipped across the Atlantic Ocean back to his house. It's been over a year since the events in Cranston. Since then, his adversary has been rather quiet; he hasn't heard any reports of him since. But something new was happening. His ring had sensed a new energy and has been acting strange a certain times for the past couple months. Agent Donner, now his personal informant in the FBI, hasn't leaked any info his way, so whatever it is, the government is keeping it tightly under wraps.

He reached his house, finally, and immediately went inside to rest, flipping on the TV to something interesting. A world news report came on:

"What has happened here in Paris can only be described as astounding. Only a week after the apparent bombing in the relatively unknown American town of Cranston, Georgia and the mysterious blue vigilante has appeared yet again in a heroic rescue of fourteen hostages help atop the Eiffel Tower. Back to you, Hal"

It cut back to America.

"Thank you, Janice. What is catching the real attention in these appearances is how alarmingly similar this blue hero's abilities are to another costumed individual who originated in Wisconsin, only this one appears to be a green variation. Are these two sightings somehow linked? More coverage on that at 11…"

As he was watching, headlights suddenly shone through his window. Hesitantly, he walked towards the door, watching the vehicle. A girl stepped out of the car. He opened the door to see Allison standing at the doorstep.

"Allie? Already back," he said as she walked in. "I thought you were in California."

"We need to talk," she was serious. She walked in, carrying a small bag," I know, I said I was going to be a week, but this is important. I had to see you in person," she pulled a glowing ball out of the bag," This landed in the backyard of my condo. I would've just called you, but the feds were coming and I had to leave fast. I thought you could tell me what it is." She handed it to Josh. He knew exactly what it was after a moment's observation.

"Put your thumb on the glowing gem," he said, handing it back. She did as he said, and the ball opened, revealing a ring, same design as the capsule. "Go ahead, put it on." The second she did, the center of the ring blipped, signifying it had found its bearer. Josh started backing away, and for good reason. Her ring was glowing brighter, vapor started swirling around the glow, and with a flash of light a violet lantern appeared. Allison was paralyzed with disbelief. "Now, put your hand in the center of the lantern."

When she did, a voice spoke out:

_"Allison Creed. You have great love in your heart."_

The lantern glowed brighter…

_"Welcome to the Star Sapphire Corps."_

She spoke the oath:

_"For hearts long lost and full of fright,_

_For those alone in Blackest Night,_

_Accept our ring and join our fight. _

_Love conquers all… with violet light!"_

The lantern dulled back down. She looked back at Josh. He had his ring close to his face, like it was talking to him. He broke out of his trance and walked towards the table.

"We need to find the others."

"'Others?' what are you-"

"I'm scanning the continent for other energy signatures." A globe appeared with three blips, "Closest one's in Cornelia, we need to hurry." He started out the backdoor, Allison following close behind.

"Would you mind telling me what's going on?" she asked.

"No time, we need to get to Cornelia. You know how to fly with a power ring, right?"

"I just got this thing, you can't expect me to automatically-"

"Thought-activated. Just tell it to enable flight. Better learn quick, I think the next lantern has already been chosen."

They took off towards Cornelia. It only took them 15 minutes, certainly getting there in time. A small portion of the town was destroyed. Something was tossing cars into buildings, wrecking everything in sight. The source of the problem was a man, perhaps around Josh's age, who was glowing red. He had a tattoo that spanned all the way down his arm to his hand, which had a red ring on the middle finger.

"What's wrong with him?" Allison asked.

"He's a Red Lantern. They're fueled by rage. Most of them have the mentality of a wild animal and are impossible to reason with," a car whizzed past their heads, "Couldn't hurt to try, huh?"

They got closer to the man. He saw them out of the corner of his eye and stopped.

"Excuse me!" Josh said, "I understand we're a lot alike. If you could just power down, sir, we could help you."

The lantern didn't listen. He grabbed an oil tanker and threw it at the two. Allison was able to dodge it; Josh, not so lucky. It knocked him back hard and he was able to shield himself just before the tanker exploded.

"So much for a peaceful approach, Josh." Allison retorted, "Let's try talking in a language he understands." Her hands lit up with violet fire as she charged at the raging lantern. She swung and hit several times, knocking him back a few feet. She grabbed him with a bind construct and tossed him into a building. Josh flew up to her position.

"Allie! We can't level the town to beat him. Keep property damage to a minimum."

"Got it."

The red lantern shambled out of the rubble, disoriented, but even more angered. He blasted at Allison. Josh shielded her and fired back. It wasn't very effective, as the red charged at Josh, tackling him to the ground, then flailing at him. Allison was able to grab his arms and pry him off, but the lantern wheeled around to push her back. She held her ground as both of them glowed brighter. The lanterns tattoo as oozing plasma. Allison's eyes were burning pink. Josh finally broke it up, shooting a bolt between them. Even more angered, the man started to charge at Josh again, but Josh's ring shot a strange mist that circled around the man's head, seemingly calming him down. He looked around at the destruction he had caused and fell to his knees, pulling the ring off of his finger. Allison was about to strike, but josh signaled her to hang back.

"Sir?" Josh spoke up.

"I apologize, man. Couldn't control myself." The man replied in a shaky voice, staring at the ring.

"We came to help. I'm Josh; this ball of fury is Allison. We got here as fast as we could after we picked up your energy signature."

"The name's Jason, Jason Carver. Didn't think there were any others."

"More than you know, Red Lantern," a voice spoke up from above them. They looked up to see two other lanterns; the green was wearing a green hoodie with a ring to match, the indigo held a wooden bow with a glowing center. She wore ripped up jeans with a ratty jacket. She, too, had a ring.

"If you guys are comfortable now, I think you may wanna hear what he has to say," the girl said.

"My name is Aaron Nielson of the Green Lantern Corps. This is Lynnette; she's from the Indigo Tribe. I met her on the way to you guys and like she said, I have something to share."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**'****Gang's All Here'**

The five of them were back at Josh's house. Aaron began as soon as they were situated.

"A little over a year ago, the New Guardians, comprised of lanterns from every corps, prophesized that an heir to Black Hand, the former leader of the Black Lantern Corps, would rise from Earth and ravage the universe once again."

"Wait a sec," Jason interrupted, "Black Lanterns? There are Black Lanterns too?"

"There are eight known lantern denominations," Aaron replied, "seven making up, what the Guardians call, the Emotional Spectrum. Red is the color of rage, orange is the color of avarice, yellow is the color of fear, green is the color of willpower, blue is the color of hope, indigo is the color of compassion, and violet is the color of love."

"There's only five here, where's yellow and orange?" Lynette asked.

"I was getting to that. With this prophecy made known, six of the seven guardians agreed to send rings to Earth, so that we would have a fighting chance to stop the heir from spreading their conquest beyond this planet. Orange, being what it is, naturally refused to share its power. I don't know about the yellow…"

Did josh dare speak up? _I know what happened_, he thought,_ No, I don't wanna talk about it_.

They all remained silent.

"Well, there must be something big coming if they're sending these rings to Earth." Allison finally said.

"Which is why we five are here, to make sure this threat is taken down," Aaron replied.

"Whoa, time-out, people," Jason spoke up, "What exactly do these Black Lanterns do?"

"Raise the dead, rip people's hearts out to fuel their lantern, destroy everything in their path, all to summon the embodiment of death itself."

"Yeah, that wasn't in the job description. I'm just some redneck mechanic, now I'm suddenly a space-soldier chosen to fight the Grim Reaper? Just a little over my head." He walked out the door. Josh soon caught up with him.

"What is your deal?" he angrily asked.

"Look," Jason said, "I don't know if you realize this, but I ain't no hero, and I sure ain't no team player."

Josh winced slightly.

"What?"

"Double negative. Look, you think I'm used to being in a group? I've never been a part of something like this. But the worlds kind of in danger and you need to get over yourself and help out. You may not like it, but we don't have a choice."

Jason looked at him angrily, "I'm really starting to not like you, Richards."

Suddenly, a black sedan pulled into the driveway. A man stepped out of the car, which Josh recognized. "Donner. I can't say I'm surprised to see you."

"Wait," Jason interrupted, "Who is-"

"Senior Agent James Donner. I apologize for arriving so late, but this is urgent."

"What? FBI wants me to answer for every meteor crash?" Josh jokingly replied.

"I'm not with the FBI anymore. After the Cranston bombing, I was transferred to ARGUS."

"Argus?"

"One of the secret agencies conspiracy theorists love to talk about online, that's all I am at liberty to say."

"So they sent you here? Why?"

"Let's step inside, so the rest of your group knows."

The three of them walked inside; Aaron and the girls were now watching TV. Aaron and Lynnette were immediately curious of Donner. Allison looked at him with a somewhat worried expression.

"Guys, this is Agent Donner." Josh said, seeing Allison's face, "Don't worry, he's here on business."

Donner looked around, just realizing how young they were. He leaned over to josh, talking quietly, "This a study group or something?"

"I'm not sure."

"Mr. Donner," Allison said, "I believe we've met? At the hospital?"

"Yes, Ms. Creed, I believe so," He said before turning back to the others, "well, I have been assigned as your liaison to ARGUS. They want a thorough report on you, so they know whether or not you're a threat."

Josh rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what he was doing. "Donner, save it. You and I had this discussion before Cranston."

"That was just you. We've seen the security footage and we know what _they _can do." He motioned at Jason and Allison.

"We've got this under control. We don't need no feds involved!" Jason said.

Josh mumbled to himself, "Double negative"

"Shut it, Blue boy!"

"Blue boy? Really?"

"Well, we can't call you Josh, and Blue Lantern is a bit redundant, we're all lanterns," Lynnette said.

"So what, we just call each other by our colors?" Allison asked.

"You got that right, _Pink_," Jason said, snickering.

"Oh shut up, _Red_," Aaron said, "Yeah, that doesn't sound right. Can't we come up with our own?"

"Well, what can we possibly come up with?"

Allison thought for a moment, "Gypsy"

The others took their time with picking theirs.

"Nexus," Aaron said.

"Jewel," Lynnette spoke up.

"Flame?" Jason said, "Nah, that's stupid…Burn! Naw, that's stupider…"

"What about Scorch?" Aaron asked.

"That's it! That's the word I'm lookin for! Scorch."

Josh laughed a little at them. "Well, looks like we're becoming a team already."

"What about you, Josh?" Allison asked.

"I don't know." He replied, "What's the point? The news doesn't even have a name for me. They don't really think of me as a hero much, just some mysterious figure, like a ghost or a phantom…." He had trailed off, but Allison practically read his mind.

"That's it! Phantom! It's perfect!"

"Phantom…I can get used to it."

"Well," Donner finally spoke up, "if you're done with this little meeting, maybe we could get some kind of demonstration? At least something I can report to my superiors."

Aaron and Josh weren't listening. They were looking at their rings. They were blinking.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**'****Close Encounters`**

Josh started out the door. "Come on, guys. We got trouble in Toccoa. Let's go!" they followed him out the door. Donner got in his car and drove off. When they arrived in the small town, they were welcomed by a robot, a little above ten feet tall. It had wires sticking out of its head, as though there was technology merged. It was not destroying anything, just walking around. Aaron recognized it.

"Manhunter." He said.

"What?" Jason said.

"It's a Manhunter android. The Old Guardians used them as their police force for the universe."

"What went wrong?" Lynnette asked.

"Faulty programming. They went rogue and the Guardians switched to Green Lanterns. These things have heavy firepower, so think fast."

"They can't be that bad, can they?" Allison spoke up as they landed.

"These things wiped out an entire sector of the universe," Aaron replied, "I think it's safe to say yes."

"Well, if these things are as bad as Aaron says," Josh spoke up, "we better figure out an attack plan."

"What's there to figure out?" Jason asked, "Turn it to scrap, let's move," He, Aaron, and Lynnette flew at the robot. Allison looked at Josh, shrugged, and then they flew to join the others. Jason charged at the android attempting to knock it down but the Manhunter kicked him away. Allison zipped around, blasting it from a distance. The Manhunter proved to have heavy firepower after all, firing an ion cannon at her. She got hit and went plummeting to the ground, but Josh caught her. Aaron constructed a sword and began striking the android, trying to at least hit something. Lynnette jumped on its back, attempting to knock out its visual relay. The android threw her off, but Jason quickly grabbed its arm and threw it into a bridge. Cars screeched to a stop, but some were too late and fell off.

"SCORCH! Get the bridge!"

Josh caught as many of them as he could as Jason ran over to support the crumbling bridge. Allison blasted the Manhunter again several times before it knocked her away. She rebound off a building, shooting back at the Manhunter and hitting it hard. Lynnette fired several good shots with energy bolts, and then threw an empty car at it. Finally, Aaron got the chance and stabbed it through the chest with a sword. Sparks flew out of its chest. The light in its eyes faded as it shut down.

"I was gonna do that….maybe…" Jason spoke up.

His ring detected something inside the machine. As he pulled the sword out, he grabbed the anomaly inside it and pulled it out with the sword. What he had detected was a device, clearly not alien. It dropped into his hand as he examined it.

"That can't be…" Aaron said to himself.

Suddenly, helicopters zoomed overhead. 5 black sedans pulled around the corner. Agents began coming out of them, pulling out assault rifles pointing them at the group.

"Freeze! Put your hands up and get down on the ground NOW!" one agent in a bulletproof vest said.

"Whoa, whoa, whatta ya doin?!" Jason said as they came to cuff him, "Same team! We're the good guys!"

"Tell that to _them_" he said, pointing at the destroyed bridge. Paramedics were rushing over to those trapped in their cars. "You five are coming with us."

Donner got out of one of the sedans, running over to them as the other agents attempted to restrain them. "Stop! What's the meaning of this?!"

"We have orders to apprehend these delinquents by any means necessary."

"These are _kids!_ I'm ordering you as a Beta-Class Senior Officer to stand down."

"The order is from The Colonel, sir."

With that, Donner was silenced. He walked back to the car, grabbing his phone and calling someone, acting very angry at whomever he was talking to.

Jason was getting aggressive against the other agents, as were Aaron, Lynnette, and Allison. Josh lowered his ring, realizing they would kill him anyway. Allison noticed it, and she did the same, as did Aaron, then Lynnette. Jason looked at them confused. Josh motioned for him to do the same. He growled, and then finally lowered his arms. The agents swarmed them, locking them in chains and loading them into a van. Josh looked over at Donner; he overheard a bit of his conversation:

"No, Colonel. I thought we had an agreement! No outside interaction until I inform you that they aren't hostile! …yes I realize this is incriminating, but what do you expect? Look, I don't have time for this, there are too many bystanders. We'll discuss this back at HQ."

The doors shut as the five of them sat down.

"What's keepin us from bustin outta this thing?" Jason angrily asked.

"Trust," Allison said, "we need them to know we're here to help, not to destroy everything."

He heard every word, but acted as though he was ignoring her.

"Look, Donner will sort this out; just don't lose your head. We'll be alright." Josh reassuringly said.

"Still a load of crap." Jason grumbled as the van started moving.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**'****Getting Along'**

It was two hours later until the doors opened again. They were ushered out of the van and down a hallway, all the way into a room with a brightly lit Plexiglas cell. They motioned them with rifles to get into the cell. The doors locked behind them. A figure was standing in the corner of the room outside of the cell.

"Welcome to ARGUS, kids," the figure stepped into the light; he was just under middle-aged. There was a certain air about him, of a person with authority. He had a badge with only a black crown on it. "My name is Col. Steve Trevor, Director of ARGUS."

"Donner was talking to you," Allison spoke up, "you're the one who ordered our arrest."

"Indeed I am, Ms. Creed."

"Ya mind tellin us why ya got us in here?" Jason asked

"Well, you're too strong for regular iron bars, and we figured it'd be safer for the general public if you were in one of our secluded locations."

Aaron walked up to him, "The Manhunter. That wasn't our fault. You should be thanking us, if you only knew-"

"Oh, we do thank you, Mr. Neilson. You showed us we _do _need defense against people like you."

Allison let out an angry sigh, "So _that's _what this is about? You feel threatened so you cage us up? We are _not _the threat-"

"You five possess the most powerful weapons on our planet. What, are we supposed to just let you run loose? Let every town end up like _Cranston_? If that thing couldn't neutralize you, what makes you think we can?"

"'Neutralize?!'" Jason yelled, "is _that _what you call neutralizing?! That thing tried to kill us!"

"Oh_ really_ now? I don't think I recall it ever fully intending to kill, not saying it even got the chance to with you guys ganging up on it."

All three talking remained silent; Josh and Lynnette were staying out of it.

"Now, if you're done, I'll be leaving, give you some time to think." He walked out of the room. The door clanked shut.

Josh finally spoke up, "We really could've handled that better."

"What? He's a total jerk…" Allison said.

"The Manhunter," Lynnette said, "we could've handled it better."

"We handled it fine! We scrapped it, end of story." Jason said.

"Lynn's right," Allison spoke up, "We tried taking it down ourselves instead of working as a team."

"Why does it matter? We beat it, ain't that effective enough?" Jason defended.

"We got left open to attacks because of it." Aaron said.

"So what? I can deal with a few scrapes-"

"But if we could cover each other, we can avoid that."

"Look, I ain't a teamwork kinda guy. If I need somethin done, I'll do it myself. I don't need any help from a runt like you!"

"What are you trying to prove?" Josh broke in, walking towards Jason.

"Excuse me?"

"You're extremely stubborn, aggressively independent, you're a complete jerk to everybody you meet. Who are you trying to look tough in front of?"

"What are you talkin about?"

"I think something happened to you, Jason. You walk around with a massive chip on your shoulder, not taking any crap from anybody. And you better get over it, because we aren't going to put up with it."

He scoffed, "you think I care one bit about what you or anyone else in this room thinks of me?"

"No use arguing with him, Josh." Allison spoke up, "He's been like this as long as I've known him."

He looked over at Allison confused, "wait, what?"

She sighed, "We used to date until-"

"Until you dumped me!" Jason barged in.

"Yeah, because I got tired of you constantly losing it over every tiny thing I did wrong!"

"I told you I was gonna try to stop! But _nooooooo_ I slipped up _one time_ and you kick me to the curb-"

"Will you both just stop?!" Lynnette yelled, "Has it ever occurred to you that _this _is why we aren't working as a team? Maybe if we could stop bickering and get over ourselves, we _could_ be a team!"

The five of them stood around in silence for a few moments. Lynnette walked over to the corner and sat down with her hands on either side of her head. Jason sat against the wall. Josh sat across from him, accompanied by Allison. Aaron stood next to Jason.

"Lynn's right, we need to get along. Whatever problems you have with us, you need to work past them."

"I got no problem with you. It's _them_," He pointed to Josh and Allison, "that I have a problem with."

"Doesn't matter, we still need to work together."

"Like I said, I don't care. Now leave me alone before you start gettin on my nerves."

Aaron walked away. Across the room, Allison and Josh were having their own discussion.

"You never told me about what happened." She said.

"What?" he replied.

"What happened in Cranston."

The very mention of the town sent a chill down his spine. He had tried to dodge the subject, but this time he couldn't talk his way out of it.

"W-what did the news say."

"Only the basics: a terrorist attacked Cranston, hid a bomb in the town, and a mysterious blue being threw it into space. But there's something more, I know there is. If there wasn't you wouldn't have been so shaken up when I saw you at school the next day."

Josh sighed, "Well, I guess I can't run away from it forever. The news was right, there was a terrorist, but what they didn't say is that…" he hesitated, "…he was a lantern."

"He was the yellow lantern, wasn't he? The one that's missing?"

"His name was Liam. I'm fairly sure he got the ring about the same time as me. Anyway, he went on a rampage in Cranston, trying to kill anybody who got in his way. He knew I was around and he was trying to lure me out. I eventually confronted him and after we fought, neither of us could hardly even stand. Then he pulled out a device with switches on it, told me he hid seven or eight bombs all around the town. I managed to destroy it, but he had already started the countdown on one. He told me it was hidden in the high school."

"I remember people saying they found pieces of the bomb on campus."

"Well, it wasn't hidden; it was right in the middle of the hallway. This nut managed to time the fight so that I wouldn't have enough charge in my ring to shield the brunt of the explosion."

"So you threw it?"

"Still didn't have enough charge to do that."

"So how?"

"All I could do was…fly it out."

She looked at him with a worried look on her face, "So you just carried it into space?"

"I wish it'd been that easy. My ring ran out of charge halfway there and it blew up in my arms"

Her hand was over her mouth, she was so shocked, "how did you-?"

"I don't know. I should've died. All I remember is waking up on the side of the road, no burns, no scars, nothing."

"That's nothing short of an act of God."

"Well, Liam managed to escape during all that, I haven't seen him since then."

"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?"

"How could you possibly help? How do you talk to your friends about that time you should've been incinerated? I'm not entirely sure what happened, I don't need everybody else having to stress over it."

She leaned over to him and side-hugged him, "You're my best friend, Josh. You can talk to me whenever you need to."

Jason watched them from the other side. He grumbled something, and then looked up to see Lynnette staring at him.

"What do you want?" he asked her.

"My ring usually detects when someone has no compassion," she replied.

"And?"

"I'd think it would be going crazy because of you, but it's not doing anything."

"So?"

"You may act like you don't care about anybody, but this says otherwise. I can tell you're just cutting yourself off. If you could just drop the bad-boy façade-"

He stood up and walked away from her, "What do you even know about it? Huh?! What makes you think you know anything about me?!"

Lynnette got up as well, "You wanna know how I know? I had a sister who killed herself a couple years ago. I thought if I just didn't talk about it, if I just didn't let people think I was in so much pain, I would be fine. But it just made everything worse-"

"Oh boo-hoo, your sister was sad and she blew her brains out, big deal?! At least she wanted to die! My brother was in a special ops group in Afghanistan. They turned on him and gunned him down in cold blood! But do you see me cryin?! NO! I ain't sad! IM PISSED! WHY ARE LITTLE GIRLS LIKE THAT ALWAYS REMEMBERED, YET MY BROTHER DIED A HERO AND NOBODY EVEN KNOWS WHO HE IS?!"

The whole room was silent. Every one of them was looking at Jason. He walked back towards the corner, punching the wall out of anger. Suddenly, all four of them raised their rings at him. Jason looked at his ring, then his arm. The tattoo was burning red. Suddenly, his hand started violently shaking. He hollered in pain, gritting his teeth. The ring was hurting him. Slowly but surely, he pried the ring off. As soon as he did, he collapsed to the floor. The others immediately ran to his motionless body.

"What's happening to him?" Allison worriedly asked.

"It's the ring," Aaron said, "A red lantern ring replaces the heart when it manipulates the bearers rage. If not removed properly, they go into cardiac arrest."

"Is there anything we can do?" Lynnette said as Jason's body was getting paler.

"Only thing I know of is a blue lantern ring."

"Hey! We got one!" Josh jokingly said, trying to lighten the mood. He pointed his ring at Jason's dying body, focusing on what he did in Cornelia. Blue mist started radiating from the ring, moving towards Jason's face. Jason breathed in the mist and jolted up; the others let out a sigh of relief.

"What? Ey, get offa me!" Jason said to Lynnette, who had her hand on his shoulder. He looked over to see Josh staring at him, "What are you lookin at?" Josh rolled his eyes and went back to his spot. Jason walked to the other corner. Allison followed him, rather irritated.

"You know," she said, "Josh just saved your life. The least you should do is thank him."

"He should've just left me alone…"

"Why?! He wasn't just going to let you die!"

"You don't understand. You guys were afraid of me, I could see it. Then I got a good look at myself and I felt like I was lookin at my old man."

She nodded, as though she understood, and walked back over to Josh. Aaron walked over to Jason.

"You okay, man?" he asked, "You scared us back there."

"I'm fine, just leave me alone."

"Okay, okay…"

"They leave us any sheets? Cots?"

"You don't really think we're staying overnight, do you?"

Jason scoffed, "We're locked up and they probably threw way the key."

"They'll let us out eventually, Jason."

"Dude, we wrecked an entire town. You really think they're just gonna let us go just like that? No way, they're gonna keep us cooped up in here as long as they want, just watch."

Not a moment after he said that, Donner walked in. they all looked at him, hoping for the best.

"Good news. I've pleaded with Col. Trevor and he's agreed to release you."

Aaron looked at Jason with an I-told-you-so look. "Not a word…" Jason quickly said.

Donner continued, "Under the condition that you leave your power rings with us. He believes we can learn from them; maybe learn how to improve them." The doors opened as three agents came in with a trolley. Hesitantly, they all put their rings in a metal container. Jason, surprisingly even after almost dying, was still the most reluctant to hand over his ring. They were led out of the cell and down a hallway, up an elevator, and out a small metal door to the streets.

"Where are we?" Allison asked.

Jason pointed over to the destroyed bridge, "Still in Toccoa."

"Really, Donner?" Josh said, "They drove us around for two hours just to drop us off around the corner?"

"It's….protocol, I don't get it either." Donner said, "Well, you're free to go."

"Hold up," Aaron said, "I live in Wisconsin, how am I supposed to get home?"

"I wish I could help, really, but ARGUS has its own agenda." He turned to walk away, "I'm really sorry it had to end like this." And with that, he closed the door.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**'****Falling Apart'**

The door clanked shut. Jason started chuckling.

"So what now?" He mockingly asked, "We your little super friends now, huh, Josh? We gonna work together now? We gotta get along now?"

The other four remained silent.

"That's what I thought. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta find a way home…" he started to walk off. Allison caught up with him.

"So that's it?" she said, "Just gonna walk away like nothing ever happened?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

She rolled her eyes, "You haven't changed one bit. Look, I know things didn't end well between us, but we need you."

"I don't think you get it. ITS OVER! This lantern thing, it's done for! No reason to stick around, I'm outta here!" he nudged her out of the way and stormed off.

"He has a point," Josh said, "without the rings, we can't do anything. Maybe we _should_ go our separate ways."

"No, we can't," Aaron spoke up, "I'm starting to think they set us up," He pulled out a device from his pocket, "I ripped this thing out of the Manhunter."

"That doesn't look alien." Lynnette said

"So what was it doing in an alien robot?"

"What are you saying?" Josh asked.

"I'm saying this is all too much of a coincidence. An alien robot just _happens _to be right near a government facility, and_ then_ have the National Guard here in just minutes. Sound odd?"

"Okay, you got a point. See if you can find anything about that thing. Get back to me as soon as possible."

Aaron walked off, Lynnette following him.

"You don't have to come along." He said.

"Hey, I got nothing else to do." She responded.

"What about heading back to wherever you're from?"

"Nah. Farther away I get from there the better. Let me tell ya, this lantern stuff is the best thing to happen to me."

"Yeah, sometimes it's better to get _away _from your roots."

"So what were you going to do before all this?"

"Well, I studied a lot of Computer science in school. I was gonna fix them for a living. Guess the universe had a different plan, huh?" Lynnette found that funny, "what about you?"

She simply shook her head, "Graduated last year, still have no idea what I wanna do."

They continued down the sidewalk.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Allison found Josh shortly after Jason stormed off.

"I honestly forgot how stubborn he is." She said.

"I can imagine." Josh replied.

"Yeah, he's always been impossible to reason with, it ain't just the ring."

"Ah, give him some time, he'll come around."

"One time I didn't walk to class with him and he didn't talk to me for a week."

"Really?"

"And I'm not exaggerating!"

"Wow…" they both laughed.

"Hey, do you wanna get a bite to eat? I haven't had anything since I got back."

"Sure, why not? There's gotta be somewhere around here." They started down the sidewalk. "So how is it between you and that guy you were crazy about?"

Her expression changed. "He dumped me right before end of the year."

"Why? You two weren't having any problems, were you?"

"Not that I know of. He said he 'couldn't date someone still in school' because he graduated. I'm like, 'really? You can drive!' It's not like there's _nothing _he could do to see me."

"What did I tell you about dating seniors?"

"But I thought he was perfect."

"You said that about the last four… or was it five? I lose count."

"Shut up," She playfully nudged him. "You know what I mean. He seemed so sweet."

"Look, you have a lifetime to find the right one, and it won't be in high school. Just give it time."

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Jason looked around for an ATM. He honestly wasn't sure how he was going to get home, but he didn't care. He just wanted to get away from the others. He hadn't slept since last night and the whole discovery-of-alien-police thing was still fresh in his mind. _What were they thinking_, he thought, _tryin to make some kinda team? I barely know any of them._

_ Scratch that, one person, and I hope I never have to look at her again._

_ Why, after 2 years, did she have to be forced back into my life? I _hate_ everything about her! Her voice, her eyes, her hair, her music choice, the way she walks, her prissy little attitude. Why can't she just stay away from me?!_

He made his way to the gas station, where a neon "ATM" sign flashed brightly. He went inside and there was a line blocking his way to the machine. He awkwardly eased his way through as teenagers stared at him, not recognizing him from school. He looked over at them as they bought a pack of Pall Malls.

"What?" he said to them, "Never seen a stranger at a gas station? At least I ain't tryin to buy cheap cigarettes."

They quickly looked away. He walked over to the ATM, where a somewhat drunk guy was trying to work the machine. He couldn't figure out why the machine wouldn't take his card. After 8 tries, Jason finally pointed out he had put the card in backwards. He thanked him and proceeded to enter his PIN number, which he couldn't remember. He tried all the numbers on the card, but none of them worked. Jasonwas banging his head on the drink machine next to the ATM, then when the man finally figured it out, he got his money and went to the counter to buy more alcohol. He found out he didn't have enough money, so he paid with a debit card. Jason saw it and his face was suddenly devoid of all emotion. He just stood there, watching the guy carry his 6 pack out the door. _He's __**very **__lucky he's drunk, or he'd be on the ground right now…_ Jason collected his money, bought a coke, and left.

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Aaron and Lynnette made their way to the local library to research the device. They were relieved to find there were computers.

"You gonna be alright here?" Aaron asked her.

"Hey, I _love_ books. I've always been a bit of a bookworm." She answered.

"For some reason, that doesn't at all surprise me."

She laughed and started down the aisles for a book to read. Aaron sat down at one of the computers. He started by looking up different transmitters, but none of them matched what he had. Finally, he searched the PIN number. He didn't find anything on any tech website, but it was on conspiracy sites that he found all the info. He searched also for where to purchase a device like it. Suddenly, the screen went blank and one simple text statement was in the middle of the screen:

"This is an illegal search. The authorities have been notified."

Aaron heard sirens in the distance after a few moments. He quickly jolted up and grabbed Lynnette out of a chair. The police were rolling up to the front door, so they casually walked to the back exit.

"What was that about?" Lynnette asked him.

"If what I just read is true, that Manhunter was just a toy compared to what ARGUS is developing."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**'****Reassemble'**

Josh and Allison finally got to a restaurant that was open. She stopped outside the door.

"Oh, crap. I need to call my parents. They're probably worried sick. I haven't called them since I left California."

"Okay, I'll wait out here." Josh said as she walked around the corner. He started walking backwards and as soon as he turned around he bumped into a girl. The papers and books she was carrying fell out of her hands.

"Really?" She said, crouching down to pick up her things.

"My God, I am so sorry." Josh said, embarrassed, he got down to help her.

"It's alright." They both reached for a paper. Their fingers touched and she quickly drew her hand back and got a book. They stood up and he gave her things back.

"Thanks," she said and started on her way.

"Hey, wait," he spoke up as she turned around. _Wow,_ he thought,_ she has the most beautiful eyes._ "Would you mind if I carried those for you? It's the least I could do."

She hesitated for a moment. "Sure, why not?" She handed her things to him and they walked together. "So what are you doing out at four in the morning?"

"Four? It's really four?" he looked at his phone: 4:13. "Well, I've had a rough night."

"Get in a fight or something?"

He looked at the collapsed bridge. "Yeah, I guess you could say that…"

"Well, I've had to pull more than an all-nighter for a research project." She saw his confused look, "Finals week, History."

"That sucks. I live a county over, we let out last week."

"Cranston?"

"Yeah."

"What happened there a couple weeks ago? I heard there was some kinda bombing."

"Oh, yeah, they really didn't tell us much."

"I heard people saw a guy with superpowers fighting in the town. He's been all over the news."

"Oh, I heard about that."

She leaned over to him rather excitedly, "I hear people saw him here."

"Yeah, he uh," he points to the bridge, "tends to leave a mark." She started laughing at him.

"I can't believe this, I don't even know you."

"Well, how about we start here? I'm Josh," he held out his hand, "Josh Richards."

"Chloe McAllister." She shook his hand.

"McAllister…You wouldn't happen to be related to-"

"Logan McAllister," She said with a somewhat annoyed but sad expression, "he's my brother."

"What's wrong?"

She was silent for a few moments, "I guess I get annoyed when people bring him up so much. I have to always hear about my brother and how he's 'the biggest trouble maker in the town.' I get so tired of it because it's like I only exist when I'm associated with my brother. Nobody cares about the baby sister."

"I don't get it."

"What's there not to get?"

"If I saw a pretty girl like you I wouldn't be thinking about her brother"

Josh stopped in place. He didn't realize what he had said until it came out. _Why? _He thought, _Why do you have to say stuff like this? She probably thinks you're weird._ "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to say that out loud, it just came out."

She was red and smiling, "it's okay," she said, "Well, what _would_ you be thinking about?"

"How I don't have a chance with her." he mumbled

"What?"

"Nothing."

They reached her house in a few minutes. She stopped mid-way up the steps.

"Well," She said, still smiling, "See you around, Josh Richards." She started in the door when he finally got the nerve to speak up.

"You know," he said as she turned around. "If you ever want to talk or hang out or grab a bite to eat or see a movie, I'd be happy to."

She smiled even more, "Are you asking me out?"

"Yes. No. Maybe, I don't know," Chloe looked at him in the eyes. "Yes." He looked down at the ground. She smiled again. She grabbed a shred of paper from her purse. She scribbled her number on it and handed it to him, then stepped inside.

"Wow," a voice behind him spoke up behind him, "You suck at talking to women." He jumped in surprise to see it was Allison.

"How long have you been following me?"

"Past five minutes." She said, laughing.

"Let's go eat." She broke down in laughter as they walked back to town.

"I can't believe this, Josh has a girlfriend."

"No, not really"

"Oh really? Then what was that?"

"Just being there for a lonely soul."

"Oh, yeah, I get it. No dating for Phantom?"

"I don't have the time. Too much to do."

"You got plenty of time now, remember?"

He looked down at his hand, where he had gotten used to the ring being there. "I've actually been thinking about that this whole time."

"What?"

"How are we just supposed to go back to the way things were after learning all this? I'm not sure I can sleep well at night knowing the Grim Reaper is going to destroy the world pretty soon. How do we go on with life knowing that?"

"Well maybe…never mind."

"Tell me."

She sighed. "Maybe it's fate. Aaron said the rings were sent to stop all this. What if it can't be stopped?"

"Don't talk like that, Allie. I've faced impossible odds before. And I can assure you this is no different."

They finally reached the diner, sat down, and the waitress came over with a couple menus.

"Oh, I forgot to ask. What did your parents say?"

"My God, they were raising Cain about me not coming straight home. I told them I'm spending the night at your place. They trust you."

"You left out the bits about being a superhero, fighting a giant robot, and getting put in prison, right?"

Allison laughed, "Nah, they know all about it," she said sarcastically.

He looked at her as the waitress walked up, "Sometimes I forget how alike we are."

"What'll it be, you two?" she asked them. They gave their orders and she grabbed the menus. "I'll be right back." She looked out the window. "Hey, do you know her?"

They both looked up. It was Chloe. She angrily stormed off the second she and Josh made eye contact. He jumped up and ran after her.

"Who is that?" she asked.

"His girlfriend." Allison said.

Josh ran back in, "She's not my girlfriend." He ran out, then stepped back in, "Okay, yeah, kinda." He ran back out. He eventually caught up with her. "Chloe! Wait!"

"I don't wanna hear it Josh," she sounded as though she was crying.

"Please, listen to me!"

She turned around to him; she had tears trickling down her cheeks. "No, Josh. Just go back to _her_!"

"Whoa, you think _me _and _Allison_ are something?"

"Sure is what it looks like!"

"Hey," he stopped her. "Me and her aren't anything, okay? We're just friends."

"Fine, go back to your _friend_, then. I have to get my phone out of the library before it closes."

"Chloe, it isn't like that. I tried to ask her out before and she rejected me."

"Before what? Before me? You just ask girls out on a weekly basis?!"

"No! In fact, it's rather new for me. Look, when we started talking, I could definitely tell you were lonely. I should know plenty about that because I spent my whole life feeling alone and I hated it. You don't deserve that, Chloe. I wanted to be there for you."

"So, what, you just asked me out because you felt sorry for me? Is that it?"

"No, not at all!"

"Then why?"

"Why else?! You're beautiful!"

They both stood in silence for what seemed like hours, both dumbfounded at what he had said. Josh felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Aaron and Lynnette.

"What is it?" Josh asked them.

"Can we-can we talk?" Aaron said.

"Can it not wait?"

"It's about the…you-know-what."

"Okay," he turned back to Chloe, "One moment." He walked outside of her earshot. "So what did you find out?"

"Dude, who is _that_?"

"None of your concern."

"That isn't your girlfriend, is it?"

Josh had had enough. "YES! OKAY?! SHE'S MY GIRLFRIEND, HAPPY?!"

"She's pretty-"

"I KNOW, SHE'S ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS AND **MY GOD, I NEED TO SHUT UP!"**

"Are you okay?"

"I haven't slept in, like, 2 days." He said, realizing Chloe probably heard every word. He turned around to see her smirking at him. "Anyway, what did you find?"

"Oh, yeah, well, it's a transmitter, but get this; it's the same kind of hardware they but in cell phones and computers to track what people do, it's just amplified. It's actually illegal to sell them; most people don't even know this tech exists."

"Why?"

"It's called a WDT; Wireless Data Transfer. What it does is it makes a note about every task a machine performs, mostly so the government knows exactly what you do and when you do it."

"I don't see why they'd put that in a Manhunte-…wait, if that device could be modified to copy the code for a command, they could replicate the tech of enemy weapons or-"

"Or an alien robot?"

"That's why the Manhunter was there. ARGUS was trying to learn about it, how it works. Not _too_ harmful."

"Manhunters have a working knowledge base of the entire universe, including-"

"Power rings."

"When we fought that thing, it scanned our rings to access its memory bank, find the weaknesses, but we hit it so fast it didn't have time to react. But theoretically-"

"It would still have the information fresh in the memory bank."

"And it had to have a command to retrieve that information, so-"

"ARGUS would have the information as well."

"Now, the only reason they would want that information is if they were developing something similar. So, hypothetically, we could be dealing with an android designed by the best engineers in possibly the world, equipped with God-knows-what kind of weaponry and the ability to take down the only weapons this world doesn't have access to."

"Until now." He stood there thinking, "What's the worst that can happen?"

"Do you **not** know why Manhunters were replaced? The original Guardians were completely emotionless beings. Likewise, the Manhunters didn't know who was a criminal and who wasn't because they didn't know how to register emotion. They put it in their own program that anything with emotion was a criminal, and lethal force was allowed. Now tell me, what are the most emotional things on earth?"

Josh simply had a scared look on his face.

"ARGUS couldn't possibly know about that."

"So if their machine is a digital copy of a Manhunter, that means it has all its flaws. We have to warn Allie and Jason, fast."

When he said that, he started to feel the ground rumbling around them. At first, Josh thought it was just a train, but there weren't any whistles. He started looking around for whatever was moving, but saw nothing.

"You feel that?" Aaron asked.

Then Josh suddenly remembered, "It's coming from underground."

They heard a loud boom a few blocks over. People started screaming. Josh and the others ran towards the commotion. Allison saw them and followed them.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Josh was still talking to Aaron, "ARGUS wouldn't set a trap to get schematics on us unless they were absolutely confident they had the tech to build their own machine. I guarantee they have been working on this since me and you showed up. Getting our rings was the last piece of the puzzle."

They rounded the corner to see what they were up against; it was massive, maybe two stories tall. It had two wrist-mounted cannons on either arm and a glowing yellow core on its chest. It scanned its surroundings as people were frantically running and screaming. It activated its weapons system. They ran for the entrance.

"You know," Josh said, "I sometimes love when I'm right. This is **not** one of those times…"

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Jason brooded through the manic crowd, not knowing the ruckus was about. He barely missed a flaming piece of debris as he jumped to the side. Jason looked up to see the android blasting cars to catch the "criminals" it had targeted. "Great," he said to himself, "two tin cans in one morning and it ain't even sunrise." He looked over to see the others making a break for the base entrance. He had no choice but to help them. He ran through the rubble as the android opened fire on him. The warehouse seemed so far away, still he kept on.

"Where's the Air Force when you actually need 'em?!"

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Josh and the others made it to the door they came out of, but the door was locked.

"Just great. Now what?" Aaron said.

"Wait look." Lynnette said. There was an indent in the doorway, almost like a hidden switch. When she pressed it, a keypad popped out.

"Oh, good. This situation just gets better and better…"

"Wait," Allison said, "I can kind of make out the worn out numbers. Let's see: one….three….seven….zero."

"Okay, fine, we got the four digits. Only about **30** different combinations and we got a death machine right behind us shooting up the place!"

Josh spoke up, "Actually only 24-"

"**You're not helping!**"

"Guys! Look! Something's drawing its fire!"

The shots started getting closer, "And whatever it is, it's coming right for us."

A figure came running through the smoke; it was Jason, running for his life. "GET OUTTA THE WAY!" he said, running close to the side of the building. He shoved them away from the door as the android kept blasting at him, blowing the door down.

"That works," Aaron said as they rushed inside. It looked abandoned, there was a collapsed ceiling and a few walls were bare frame. They looked around trying to find an entrance. "There," Aaron pointed to rusty-looking elevator doors, something nobody would be looking for. The found the switch and the doors creaked open. They quickly got in.

"Wait, Jason, how did you know the door was locked?" Lynnette asked.

"Common sense. You're breaking into a government base and you _didn't_ think the door would be locked?"

The others remained silent.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**'****One More Chance'**

The doors opened and they walked out into a long hallway. Soldiers were running all over the place. To the left, there were sparks shooting out of a room at the end of the hall. Donner walked out of the room, talking to somebody on the phone. "…What were you thinking, hooking up the core so soon?! It's already hit the surface, Colonel, it's too late. Fine, I'll be right there…" he walked right past them.

"Donner, what happened?" Josh said.

He jolted around, worried, "What are you doing here? If somebody catches you-"

"We want to help."

"I'm sorry, you can't be here, now get to safety." He started walking, then came back, "Never mind, come with me." He motioned them to follow him.

"So how'd ya mess up?" Jason said.

"We don't know. We tried to plug in its power core for a test run to see if it would sustain and the thing just jolted to life on its own. We think it's because of the AI we ripped from-"

"From the Manhunter?" Josh asked, "Yeah, we figured all that out."

"Look, it wasn't my idea. I told them not to let that thing loose until we were absolutely sure you kids couldn't be controlled."

"They have trust issues or something?"

"Major."

They reached the main control center. Col. Trevor was shouting orders.

"…Okay, we are at Defcon-3. Davis, Get me the Pentagon!" Steve said.

"What do you think you are doing?" Donner asked.

"That's a 3.5 billion dollar weapon and I plan to destroy it by any means necessary."

"You are not suggesting we call a nuclear strike on the location."

"It's our only option, James!"

"No sir, not the only one." He looked at the group, as did Trevor.

"Donner, remind me to fire you after this."

"We're here because we want to help." Josh said. "Clearly _this _is what it takes for you to realize my friends and I are not the threat, _you are. _But I think we can come to an agreement on something, because I'm betting we want to take that thing down just as much as you do. "

"What are you getting at, Richards?"

"What I'm offering," he jumped up and sat on the table, "is to clean up your mess for you. No nukes, no bloodshed, nobody would know this was your fault, all would be well."

Trevor hesitated for a moment. "If we are to hand those rings back over to you, it will be on our own terms."

"Which would be?"

"You five will be deputized as ARGUS operatives. We call the shots after this."

"That's bull, I ain't gonna be no little flyin monkey!" Jason shouted.

"**Double negative**!" Josh responded, turning back to Trevor, "Don't you think that's a little much, Steve? We're fighting a giant robot for you guys; we get _nothing _in return."

"True, but I need to know you'll never act out of our interests. Besides, if you're not the threat, why would this be so difficult?"

Josh stood there, contemplating the possibilities, "No secrets? No working behind our backs?"

"Well, I can't promise that…"

"Yeah, not meaning to interrupt," Lynnette said, "but there's totally still a giant killer robot out there that ain't waiting on us."

"Looks like you have a choice, Mr. Richards."

The streets of the town lay in ruin, people screaming in the distance. A woman and her child try to hide behind the machine, but it detects them and turns around. They scream. The little girl holds on to her mother. The mother holds her tight in her arms, closing her eyes. The androids cannon charges. They brace for the end.

But the mother stops crying. Her spirit started to lift. She started to smile a little. She wasn't afraid. Everything was going to be okay. She and her daughter were going to survive.

She had hope.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**'****As A Team'**

A rock hit the back of the androids head. It turned around to see a person shouting at it; it was Jason. He waved his arms at it to get its attention. Finally the android took its aim off the woman and child and fired at Jason. A cloud of smoke rose up from where he was standing. The machine turned back halfway, until it noticed its sensors still showed a life form there. The smoke settled.

Jason was surrounded by a red forcefield, his ring on his finger. His costume materialized as he charged at it. Red energy started trailing off of him as his rage built with every step. Suddenly, the android kicked him into a building at the end of the street. Aaron stood a few feet away from the impact. Jason shambled out, highly disoriented.

"I told you that was a bad idea."

"Okay, yeah, you were right." Jason answered, clutching the back of his head. "Let's stick with Josh's plan."

"Phantom, we're in position, waiting for your signal, Nexus out."

The android turned back to the family, only to see Phantom standing in front of them. He floated up to the androids eyes, making sure it focused on him alone.

"NOW!" he said.

Gypsy flew in and hit the android in the face, sending it back a few feet. She struck it again, but this time the machine blocked her and blasted at her. Jewel shot it with a bolt from across the street as it turned around to target her. Nexus leaped into the air with a construct sword, slashing at it. It raised its arms in defense, but Scorch whipped a construct chain around its wrist, pulling the android back. It stated falling when he blasted it forward, then Phantom grabbed its arm and slung it down. Jewel managed to get a few hits on it before it struck the ground. Nexus ran at it again, but the machine fired a yellow energy beam at him, making him weak. Scorch flew up and wrapped his chain around its wrist cannon and ripped it off. The robot shot a blue energy beam at him, which made his ring deactivate. He managed to regain power before he hit the ground.

"That thing got up like it was nothing!" Gypsy exclaimed.

"Alien technology plus human stupidity, trust me, it's unbeatable." Phantom said as he zipped towards the android. Smoke started streaming from behind him as he flew. It opened fire on him, but he dodged every shot. He ripped out the gun, threw it at the machine, and then shot an energy beam at it, causing the artillery to explode. But the android stood back up, not a scratch on it. He put his finger to his comm-link. "Col., you there?" he asked.

"Copy, Phantom." He responded.

He dodged a flaming car, "What did you make this thing out of?!"

Steve sighed, "Four layers of titanium alloy, designed to withstand anti-aircraft shells."

"Why would you build an indestructible death machine?!" Phantom narrowly missed another car. "Any other weak points, like a kill switch?"

"We already tried that, its AI overrode the command."

"Unbelievable, you guys are just geniuses-"

Suddenly, another voice came on, "Wait, there is one more weak point."

"And who is this?"

"Head engineer on the Omega project. The power core is extremely volatile. The right hit could cause a meltdown."

"Got it." He launched at the machine, repeatedly punching the glowing circle. It had no effect. The android swatted him away like a fly.

"It'll take more than one of you." the engineer said, "You all have to attack it."

Slowly, but surely, they stood up, standing together. The android targeted all five of them.

"Like we talked about: together."

They flew at it in formation. It fired blue energy at Scorch, but Nexus flew in front of him, absorbing the energy instead, then swung a heavy mace at its head. It fired yellow energy at Nexus, but Phantom depowered it. He blasted one of its palm blasters, making it short circuit. The machine fired at Phantom with the other hand, but Jewel shot a bolt at it. With both palm blasters destroyed, Gypsy swung at its head, causing the targeting system to malfunction. An assortment of weapons sprang out and started firing randomly.

All five of the group scattered, making sure the artillery didn't hit anybody. Phantom followed a missile and destroyed it before it could blow up a pharmacy. He glanced across the street; Chloe was standing at the corner, filming the whole thing. A stream of gunfire was getting closer to her, yet she made no effort to move. Phantom shot across the street at supersonic speed, shielding her from the bullets right before they would've cut her in half. He rocketed at the android, blue fire erupting from him, ripping the launchers and guns apart. He was too late to get one; it fired right in his face. Phantom landed on his feet, ears ringing from the blast. He looked up, righteous fury surging through him. He got on the comm once again.

"Alright, let's turn it to scrap."

Scorch wrapped its arms in chains and pulled back, ripping its arms off. He jumped on its neck to pull it back. Nexus created a flail, swinging it, preparing to strike. Jewel drew back her bow, generating an energy arrow. Phantom and Gypsy got ready to attack.

"You ready?" he asked her.

"Not really." She answered.

"Good enough." They charged at it. Phantom fired an energy bolt the core. Gypsy jumped in the air, raising her flaming fist back. Jewel shot the bolt. Nexus swung the construct flail. Scorch brought his fists down. They all hit the core of the android simultaneously. The light faded, and then the machine finally exploded, sending all five of them in different directions.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**'We Are'**

The remains of the Omega fell to the ground, finally defeated. Josh got up first, looking around for the others. The town was in really bad condition; just about every building on that street was destroyed. Fire erupted from one, the wall of another collapsed onto the sidewalk.

_Better this than nothing here at all,_ he thought to himself. "Guys? Everybody okay?"

Aaron blasted some rubble off of himself. Allison hopped out of the building she landed in. Lynnette moved a car out of the way with her ring. Jason shambled around the scrap heap that was the Omega. He was clutching his back.

"Remind me **not** to jump on a robot's back again." Jason said. They all looked around.

"I…I think we won…" Lynnette said.

"Yeah…we did." Aaron replied.

"And we did it as a team." Josh said, "Maybe this isn't over after all. What do you say?

"You know I'm in, Josh." Allison said.

"I didn't come all this way for nothing." Aaron added.

"Count me in, too." Lynnette spoke up. They all looked at Jason, who was standing off to the side. He finally reluctantly walked up to them.

"Sure, whatever." He said.

"So what are we gonna call ourselves?" Aaron asked, "You know the media will find out, we should give them something to work off of, like a name."

"The Rainbow Squad!" Jason sarcastically shouted. They all looked at him annoyed, "Well, what does it matter? ARGUS _owns _us now. We're just some task force. Just soldiers."

Josh started thinking, "No…we aren't soldiers. Soldiers are replaceable. Soldiers conform to one unified body. Soldiers volunteer to do work. Us… we were _chosen_. We're outcasts. We're one of a kind. We fight for the good of all, not just our own. We're warriors."

"The Warriors?" Aaron asked. "Sounds a bit generic, don't you think?"

Allison added to it. "Light Warriors."

Sirens started blaring from around the corner. They flew into the sky as the sun rose, hitting the pavement as the police arrived at the scene, being ordered to set up roadblocks. Bystanders crowded behind the cars, hoping to catch a glimpse of their heroes, but they were already gone.

One person managed to capture an image of them flying away. Three days later, that image would go viral. The media was going crazy at the idea of superheroes. "Who are they?" they asked. "How long have they been around?" "Can they be trusted?" the news discussed them for days, making a total field day out of it. Then, after a formal statement from the federal government, the news coverage immediately stopped, claiming it was all a hoax, a harmless example of how Photoshop can be misleading. And for a few weeks, people believed it. Until Chloe's footage was discovered on the internet.

The bloggers went ballistic. YouTubers analyzed every second of it. Artists started drawing their own depictions of the mysterious heroes. It became the single biggest internet sensation since funny cat videos. No matter what the government said, the world knew: there were superheroes among us. The online community made sure everybody knew it.

But the question still remained: Who are they?

Before long, they discovered the answer. A message had been posted on every forum, every blog, every video, and every social media post that mentioned them, all so the whole world could see. It was short, but it said so much:

**"We are Light Warriors"**


End file.
